Providence Park
by alphaangel
Summary: One shot. Ianto explains his unusual reaction to Jack. Set after 'Out Of The Rain.'


This is my first attempt at a Torchwood fic so I would really appreciate it if you could let me know what you think. Oh, and I don't own Torchwood, I just spend a lot of time hanging around places that they film at!

**Providence Park**

"No, at Providence Park, it's a psychiatric hospital." The nurse said after thinking for a moment.

"I know it." Ianto said looking uncomfortably over at Jack.

Jack continued looking at him for a second more after Ianto turned back to face the nurse.

---

"What was that about?" Jack asked as soon as they got into the SUV.

"What was what about?" Ianto replied blushing slightly.

"The way you reacted when that nurse said Providence Park."

"I don't know what you mean." He said looking through the wind screen to avoid Jack's gaze.

"Ok." Jack said obviously not believing him.

----

"You going to tell me what's going on?" Jack asked after the rest of the team had gone home for the night and the two of them were alone in the Hub.

Ianto didn't answer, he just swallowed loudly.

"You've been weird since we were at the hospital."

Ianto stood up and walked away from Jack, needing the space. He sighed before opening his mouth to speak.

"I was sent there, when I was a teenager. I was sectioned."

There was silence for a moment while Jack processed the information. "Why?" His voice shook as he said it.

"I tried to kill myself."

"That's not in your file." Jack said quickly, then mentally kicked himself for asking such an unimportant question.

Ianto shook his head. "London never asked about it, they weren't that great about researching the background of support staff before taking them on. I deleted all evidence of it while I was there."

"Why did you try to kill yourself?" Jack asked coming to stand beside Ianto and resting his hand on the distressed man's back.

"Things were complicated at home, I wasn't the son my Dad wanted. He wanted a son who wanted to play rugby and then go out drinking with a load of loud friends. I couldn't be that. He couldn't understand why I was the way I was. He hated everything about me. He used to come home from work at night and he'd come into my room, he'd scream at me. 'Why is your bedroom so tidy? Why don't you like playing out with other boys? Why can't you be normal?' I, I couldn't tell him why I flinched whenever someone would touch me, or even come a bit too close. Why I was scared all the time. Why I needed some sort of control over my life."

Ianto sat down with a bump and Jack sat opposite him. "It's ok." Jack said reaching out to take hold of Ianto's hand.

"When I was a kid my Dad's brother would come and look after my sister and I. Rhi used to go down the street and play with friends. It would just be me and him for hours.

I can remember the first time he touched me like it was yesterday. I was four, I didn't even know that what he was doing was wrong but I knew that it scared me. He told me that if I told anyone they wouldn't believe me, that everyone would know that I was a liar. I believed him. As the years went on it got worse, the things he did were worse.

When I was fourteen I took an overdose and slit my wrists. I'd been cutting myself for years but it wasn't enough, I couldn't take anymore so I decided to kill myself. My parents were both at work and Rhi was out with a friend but they had a fight and she came home early. I'd done it in the bath, had this idea that it would be easier for them to clean up the mess after I was dead. She found me. I was barely conscious when she came in but I remember her screaming when she saw me.

She was screaming my name over and over again, I still hear her in my nightmares sometimes. I can hardly face her still. Everything she says to me sounds like her screaming, I can still hear the fear in her voice.

I was sectioned while I was in Cardiff hospital, taken straight to Providence Park. I was there for eighteen months. It all came out about what my uncle was doing during counselling. The hospital told my parents. The police investigated but couldn't get enough evidence together to convict him. It was just my word against his and who would believe a mentally unstable boy over a respectable man.

None of my family believed me. They all sided with him. They insisted I was lying, just like he told me they would. My Mam came to see me twice while I was in there. Dad wouldn't come near me. They wouldn't let me see Rhi, I just wanted to tell her that I was sorry that she had found me like that, I tried to write to her so many times but they were destroying my letters before she got them. Eventually they told the hospital that I wasn't to have any contact with anyone outside of the hospital. I didn't see or hear from any of them again until I was discharge. I was sixteen.

About a year later my Dad died, it was only a few months before I went to Uni. I hated him for what his brother had done to me, for leaving me with him, for not believing me. I went to Uni. and never came back. I stayed they, didn't go home during the holidays, ignored the letters my Mam sent, even ignored Rhi.

Mam died while I was working at Torchwood One, I didn't go to her funeral, couldn't make myself go. Rhi was so mad, kept leaving me messages. I didn't have any contact with her until I came back to Cardiff. I ran into her, literally, in a shop.

We've met up for coffee a few time since, never talked about what I did. I think she's scared to bring it up but I can tell that she wants to. Every time she looks at me she's wondering. I don't know what she's knows, don't know what she was told. For all I know, she could think I'm a liar."

Jack held tightly onto Ianto's hand. "Maybe you should talk to her, tell her everything you just told me."

Ianto shrugged. "But what if she thinks I'm a liar?" He whispered.

"You said she'd been trying to contact you a lot while you were at uni?" Ianto nodded. "And she's wanted to meet up with you since you've been back in Cardiff?"

"Yeah."

"If she thought you were a liar, don't you think she'd want no contact with you?"

Ianto shrugged again. "I don't want her to hate me, she's my sister."

"Is she a good person?"

"Yeah."

"Then I can't believe that she would hate you. You should talk to her. Why don't you call her, see if she can meet you?"

Ianto bit his lip but took his phone out of his pocket. "You really think?"

"Yeah."

"But what if she doesn't believe me?"

"Then you've not lost anything and I'll still be here for you."

Ianto smiled at him and dialled the number.

"_Mica, what have I told you about hitting your brother with the frying pan? Hello?"_

"Rhi?"

"_Ianto?" _He could almost hear the concerned frown on her face. _"Is that you?"_

"Yeah, it's me. How are you?"

"_I'm ok, can't remember the last time you called me though. Are you ok? You sound strange."_

"Look, Rhi, I really need to talk to you. Is there any chance that we could me up?"

"_Yeah, of course. Now?"_

"Is that ok?"

"_To be honest I could do with getting out of the house, the kids are driving me nuts. Where do you want to meet?"_

"The tourist office by the bay, where I work?"

"_Ok, I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Ianto? You, you are ok, aren't you?"_

Ianto sighed. "Yeah, I'm ok."

"_Ok, Ianto. I'll see you in a minute."_

"Thanks Rhi."

He turned back to Jack. "She's coming now."

Jack pulled Ianto towards him and held him in his arms. "It's going to be alright, whatever happens, it's going to be alright."

---

"Hi." Ianto said opening the door to the tourist office to let his sister in.

She hugged him tightly before he got a chance to step back. He tensed up automatically before relaxing slightly and shaking her off as quickly as possible.

"So this is where you work then?" She said looking around the office.

"Er, yeah, kind of."

"And this is really what you do? You work in tourism?"

"Manning this place is part of my job. I'm an administrator." It was the only way he could explain what he did without mentioning aliens or lying.

"You sounded strange on the phone, Ianto. Is there something wrong?"

"There something I need to talk to you about." Ianto replied pulling out a chair for Rhiannon to sit on.

"Rhi, what did Mam and Dad tell you about why I was in Providence Park?"

"Nothing, they wouldn't talk about it."

"You remember when we were kids and Mam and Dad were working, Uncle John would come and look after us."

"Vaguely, yeah. I was usually out playing with the kids down the street though."

"He used to abuse me Rhi, when everyone else was out."

"What, what did he do to you?" She asked but she looked like she wasn't sure whether she wanted to know.

Ianto closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "He raped me. Repeatedly. Started when I was four."

"Shit!" Rhiannon muttered under her breath, thinking about her children. "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"He told me they wouldn't believe me."

"Mam and Dad would have, they would have stopped him."

Ianto shook his head and opened his eyes to look at her. "They knew, they didn't believe me, just like he said they wouldn't."

"What?" She replied in disbelief.

"They found out while I was in the hospital, the counsellors told them. They told me I was lying. Didn't come back to see me until I was discharge. A year and a half I was in there. Alone. I was scared. No one believed me Rhi, the whole family knew, they all believed him. Even Mam."

"Why didn't you tell me Yan?" Tears were prickling in her eyes. "I'd have believed you. I'd have stood up for you. Why didn't you tell me? You didn't even reply to my letters, I sent you hundreds while you were in that place. You never replied to one."

"You, you... Rhi, I never got them. I swear, I never got any letters from you or anyone while I was in hospital. I wrote to you though, to apologise for how you'd found me. Dad destroyed all my letters before they got to you. Then he made the hospital ban me from contacting anyone."

"I, I thought you just didn't care about me anymore." Rhiannon said with a weak smile.

"God, Rhi, never think that. I never stopped caring about you." Ianto took his wallet out from a pocket and pulled a battered photograph from it. He unfolded it and handed it over to Rhiannon.

"That was taken on the beach at Barry Island."

"I remember that day." Rhiannon said looking at the picture of two children building sandcastles together.

"Where ever I've been, I've always had that picture with me."

"God Yan, I wish you'd told me sooner. I wish I could have been there for you."

"I was scared that you would hate me. Especially after I didn't come home for Mam's funeral. I wanted to be there, not for her but for you but I knew that he would be there."

"I understand why you couldn't be there."

Ianto stood up looking uncomfortable. "He's never been near David or Mica has he?"

"No, God, no. I haven't seen him since Mam's funeral."

"I'd never have forgiven myself if he'd done anything to them. I swear, if he ever touched them, I'd kill him." He slid down the wall behind him until he was sat on the floor, feeling the gun he carried digging into his side, knowing that he wouldn't hesitate in using it against that man to protect his nephew and niece.

"I'll never let him near my children." She said and walked over to Ianto. She sat down beside him and put her arms around him. "It's ok, Yan, it's ok." She held him while he cried, mourning his lost childhood, his lost innocence.

She held him until exhaustion overtook him. Eventually she heard a door open and Jack appeared beside them, he'd been watching it all on the CCTV.

"It's ok, I'm his boss. I'll look after him." Jack said kneeling beside Ianto who, recognising his scent, reached out in his sleep and took hold of Jack's hand.

Rhiannon decided that Ianto seemed to trust this stranger so she nodded to him, kissed Ianto on the cheek and stood up.

"Tell him I'll call him tomorrow, and that I love him."

"I'll tell him."

"Look after him." She said before leaving the office.

Jack carefully picked Ianto up and carried him into the hub. He carefully undressed him before putting him into bed and climbing in beside him.

"She believed me." Ianto murmured, not completely awake.

"I told you she would." Jack replied quietly, cuddling up to him.


End file.
